http://85.142.116.254/index.php/journal/issue/feedVisual Theology2025-06-27T19:56:27+00:00Аванесовiskiteam@yandex.ruOpen Journal Systems<p><strong>"Visual theology"</strong> is a peer-reviewed journal, designed to discuss theoretical problems relating to the visual aspects of the representation and translation of theological knowledge and to the visual-semiotic parameters of religious practices of the past and present.</p>http://85.142.116.254/index.php/journal/article/view/147Conflations in Russian iconography of the 16th – 17th centuries: a game of contexts2025-06-27T13:50:58+00:00D. I. Antonov antonov-dmitriy@list.ru<p>The article deals with the conflation of motifs and the appearance of new figures in Russian iconography of the second half of the 16<sup>th</sup> and 17<sup>th</sup> centuries. The author focuses on the iconography of the ‘Resurrection – Descent into Hell’ and some close subjects. As the article shows, during this period the motives began to actively interact with each other, to generate original contamination. The logic of the masters worked in an original way and was not always obvious. The author examines the personifications of hell in the form of a mouth, a head and a giant, as well as the functions of these figures (hold the devil, release the righteous, absorb demons). As the analysis shows, these functions began to merge due to the appearance of new, hybrid shapes. In addition, in the 17<sup>th</sup> century there appeared an unusual visual parallel between the figures of a righteous soul coming out of the mouth of hell, and the figure of a demon, also standing in the toothy mouth of hell. The soul used to be depicted naked; the devil was also shown naked, and received female breasts. The paper also examines the Kargopol icon of the end of the 16<sup>th </sup>century, which depicts Abel instead of Judas in hell, on the devil’s lap. The author analyzes the legend of Abel as the first dead man on earth – a Christian adaptation of the wandering motif about a bird that taught a man to bury a dead man in the ground. This motif is widely represented in folklore in Eurasia – its variations are found in Muslim, Jewish and Christian literature, in the Near East and Asia Minor, in the Caucasus and in the Arctic. In Russia, he was known for his Intelligent Palea. Legend told that after the murder of Abel, his body remained incorruptible. God sent two turtledoves to Adam and Eve – one of them died, the second buried her in the ground and thus taught the ancestors how to deal with the dead. The plot spread in the Russian iconography of the 17<sup>th</sup> century. This, as the author suggests, gave rise to the visual motif in the Kargopol icon – its creator knew the legend of Abel as the first dead man and deployed its logic to events related to the resurrection of Christ and salvation of righteous souls from hell.</p>2025-06-26T00:00:00+00:00Copyright (c) http://85.142.116.254/index.php/journal/article/view/148Some reflections on the origins of the iconography ‘The Lord in Glory’ (Maiestas Domini): the church of the Evangelists in the Alahan monastery (5th century)2025-06-27T13:51:23+00:00А. О. Tatarnikova anastasya.tatarnikova@gmail.com<p><em>Maiestas Domini</em> (The Lord in Glory, the Majesty of the Lord) is an iconographic scheme according to which Christ is depicted sitting on a throne surrounded by symbolic figures of the evangelists, represented in the form of mystical beasts (tetramorph). This subject became widespread in the Middle Ages in monumental paintings, hand-written Gospels and monumental sculpture of church portals. The origins of this unusual iconography can be traced back to the Early Christian period. In the times of Early Christianity there was a wide range of compositional variations of this scene, and its interpretation in art exhibits significant iconographic diversity. The article aims to explore some aspects of the iconography ‘The Lord in Glory’ (<em>Maiestas Domini</em>) in Early Christian art and to analyze the causal reasons for the predominance of certain types of images. The subject of the study is one of the outstanding Early Christian monuments – the relief of the portal of the church at Alahan monastery in Isauria (Asia Minor). On the basis of the research of the theological context and of the comparison with the other preserved Early Christian monuments, the Alahan relief composition is considered as one of the earliest realizations of the iconographic scheme of ‘The Lord in Glory’ in the monumental sculpture of the church portals. Special attention in the article is paid to the analysis of the tetramorph presented in Alahan in the Old Testament interpretation, where the principle of unity of four images is clearly evident. The author states that the Alahan <em>Maiestas Domini</em> composition has some features that are more typical for the Eastern Christian tradition, and suggests that the theological interpretations of prophetic visions by Ephrem the Syrian played a significant role in the formation of the iconography of ‘The Lord in Glory’ in the East of the Christian world. The author concludes that the central gate relief composition of the Alahan monastery main basilica is a visual representation of the Old Testament prophecies regarding the Second Coming of Christ in Divine glory and power.</p>2025-06-26T00:00:00+00:00Copyright (c) http://85.142.116.254/index.php/journal/article/view/149Monument in the space of a modern city: sacred versus profane2025-06-27T13:51:46+00:00E. Yu. Lekuslekus_elena@mail.ru<p>The problem of the sacred and its place in human life is one of the most important in the humanities. In recent decades, discourse on the sacred has become especially relevant due to scientific debates about the secular and post-secular nature of modern society. In particular, there is a question about what strategy and tactics should be used when working with sacred spaces in a modern city. The article explores current problematization of the concept of sacred in both theoretical and practical terms through monument as a form of symbolic culture. Monuments have played an exceptional role in history, as they embody meaning that represents a group’s highest (sacred) values. However, against the background of understanding and rethinking the role of ‘old’ and ‘new’ sacred chronotopes in the modern city and, more broadly, in the social space as a whole, the question is asked today more and more often: what is the monument’s place in a modern city? The study substantiates the view that one of the characteristics of the current historical period is the coexistence of different forms of the sacred in the world. These forms characterize different paradigms ‒ classical, modern, and postmodern ‒ as well as different types of cultures ‒ monostylistic and polystylistic. Thus, when working with sacred zones, it is impossible not to consider the fact that in the social space of the 21<sup>st</sup> century live both representatives of the (late) postmodern paradigm, which includes a variety of sacred meanings, and followers of the two other paradigms ‒ classical and modern, for which the sacred can still be associated with religious and / or ideological values expressed in monuments. Using a number of examples, the article examines symbolic social practices that show that no matter what forms the sacred takes nowadays, the sacred meaning is still important, and monument remains one of the cultural and anthropological constants.</p>2025-06-26T00:00:00+00:00Copyright (c) http://85.142.116.254/index.php/journal/article/view/150Religious semantics in monumental works by Kuban artists of the late Soviet period2025-06-27T13:52:06+00:00I. A. Apollonovobligo@yandex.ru<p>The article is devoted to the semiotic peculiarities of the use of religious imagery in the works of Soviet monumental art. From the position of semiotics of culture the following problems are studied: the correlation of secular and religious components in monumental art; the use of symbolic potential of religious images by Soviet artists; the use of semiotic scenarios of reference to religious images in the works of Kuban artists of the 1970s ‒ 1980s. The author substantiates that the artistic use of religious semantics creates intertextual interaction with the highest spiritual authority of the tradition, which gives the denotate of a monumental work semantic multivalence and anagogical interpretation. The religious and eschatological pathos of the revolutionary renewal presupposed an artistic reinterpretation of recognizable religious images, in which the old denominations were replaced by new social content. The artistic comprehension of the sacrificial deed of the people in the sacred struggle against foreign invaders forms a different semiotic scenario, in which the content of the work does not replace the previous sacred image, but acts as its successor and creates an intertextual shift of meaning. Using examples of monumental works by Kuban artists, the author analyzes a number of semiotic scenarios of using religious images. On the one hand, the use of religious images gives a spiritual character to the ideologically significant themes of Soviet society. On the other hand, religious semantics is used by the artist as a tool for critical interpretation of the false spirituality of Soviet realities. The obtained results allow to consider the existence of religious symbols in the cultural space of the state with atheistic ideology and to see the semiotic features of the sacral core of the cultural code of the Russian national tradition.</p>2025-06-26T00:00:00+00:00Copyright (c) http://85.142.116.254/index.php/journal/article/view/151The sanctification of the polis by performative Epiphany celebrations in contemporary Slovakia (The Magi Cortege and the Caroller’s “Walking with the Star”)2025-06-27T13:52:33+00:00A. A. Hlaváčováanna.a.hlavacova@gmail.com<p>The first part of the study reflects the urban Epiphany phenomenon of Three Kings cortege. The festivity originated in Milano as a response to the city’s loss of the Magi relics by their transfer to Cologne. The study afterwards concentrates on the revival of the festivity in Central Europe, evoking its structure: The position of the Kings sitting on horses or camels literally changes the point of viewers. To see the Kings, they must raise their heads. Similarly, the little starbearers, representing the sparkles of the comet leading to Betlehem, attract the gazes of the audience upwards by the long poles on which they carry their stars. This elevation of one’s sight above the common optical horizon does something similar to the human soul giving it the opportunity to experience the well-known anew. The second part of the study is devoted to the carollers’ “Walking with the Star”, and reveals this custom’s ancient origin. Given the royal motifs it contains – the carollers speak of the Kings instead of Magi – the author concludes that its present verbal and performative form could have been fixed only once the cult of the Three Kings had been established in Cologne with the coronation of the Magi relics in 1200. The textual analogy of the performance with the Hymn Book from 1430, closes the upper interval of the dating, out of which we conclude that the carolling invariant preserved all around Slovakia stabilized in the 13<sup>th</sup>–14<sup>th</sup> centuries. Nevertheless, the Kings maintain the qualities of the Magi as their performers use the sacramentals of frankincense and myrrh, but also the chalk with which they mark the door with the blessing formula for the oncoming solar year as well as the year since the birth of Christ.</p>2025-06-26T00:00:00+00:00Copyright (c) http://85.142.116.254/index.php/journal/article/view/154Visual images of Palestine on the pages of pilgrimage texts of the late 19th and early 20th centuries2025-06-27T13:45:54+00:00А. А. Valitovval11@bk.ru<p>The article is devoted to the study of visual images presented in texts devoted to pilgrimage to Palestine of the late 19<sup>th</sup> – early 20<sup>th</sup> century. The research interest is based on the idea of illustration as a way of overcoming the rationality of language. The author uses as an important methodological approach the concept of “visual turn” in the humanities, which was caused by the dominance of visual images in the culture of the 20<sup>th</sup> century. The penetration of images and visual images began as early as in the 19<sup>th</sup> century, thanks to technological advances, which opened opportunities for the creation of new visual forms. The main sources were pilgrimage texts of the end of the 19<sup>th</sup> ‒ beginning of the 20<sup>th</sup> centuries published by the following authors: E. F. Muyaki, Bishop Nicanor, A. A. Suvorin, I. P. Yuvachev. The data dedicated to the Holy Land contain illustrations that accompany the text and help the reader to “see” the described reality. The main key images that form a visual framework of images that give an idea of the Holy Land were highlighted. The illustrative material accompanied by captions not only enriched the textual entries, but also contributed significantly to the formation of a holistic and vivid image of the Holy Land, allowing readers to gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of the events and places described. This emphasizes the importance of visual elements in literature and their role in creating an impression of the cultural and historical realities of the described region. Illustration acts not just as a supplement to the text, but as an important element that can change the perception and interpretation of the content, deepening understanding of historical and cultural events. Visual images become an essential tool for researchers, allowing them to create multi-layered and multifaceted interpretations of artistic and historical texts.</p>2025-06-26T00:00:00+00:00Copyright (c) http://85.142.116.254/index.php/journal/article/view/155Visualization of eschatological semiotics in informational discourses of modern marginal Orthodoxy2025-06-27T13:53:05+00:00V. Yu. Lebedevsemion.religare@yandex.ruA. M. Prilutskiialpril@mail.ru<p>At present, eschatological and apocalyptic issues are acting as a stable driver for the development of popular religious discourse. At the same time, marginal groups of religious people are actively using apocalyptic semantics on the Internet to develop their own pragmatic strategies. Eschatology is a hermeneutical model that allows basic mythologems to be combined into a coherent system. Eschatological thinking simultaneously forms the context for the interaction of these mythologems and provides a tool for their interpretation and transmission. The important semiotics element of modern eschatological visualizations is the precedent text by analogy with which new images are constructed. That eschatological semiotics is well represented in the non-canonical iconography of the holy Youth Vyacheslav (Slavik Chebarkulsky). While there is a combination of elements from various semiotic codes, the horse, determined by the iconic plot, is replaced by a bicycle, and the ‘snake’ is replaced with an image of a dinosaur. Active semiotization of eschatological plots, actualized through opportunistic hermeneutic interpretation of modern events, includes graphic images that are conditioned by artistic interpretations of repressions from the 1930s to 1950s. At the same time, stereotyped plots and images migrate from one alarmist publication to another. The corresponding visual discourse also includes standard elements of computer graphics widely circulated on the internet, such as emoticons, which have simplified and caricatured facial features. The kinship of these images with some aspects of rock culture is not in doubt. In addition, the dynamic of the pictorial eschatological narrative was actively influenced by the information environment in a global epidemic situation. The appropriate semiotic code combines traditional and modern elements</p>2025-06-26T00:00:00+00:00Copyright (c) http://85.142.116.254/index.php/journal/article/view/156Art and the Sacred2025-06-27T19:56:27+00:00S. S. Vaneianvaneyans@gmail.com<p>The text offered to the reader served as the source material for the last (XXVI) chapter of the forthcoming book “Theory of Art. Introduction”. This is the text of lectures given by the author about 15 years ago at the History Department of the Lomonosov Moscow State University for art students. The range of topics discussed in the text reproduces the conceptual situation within the context of art functioning, which should be called ‘Artistic and Sacred’. This field reflects exactly art historical (not religious, aesthetic, anthropological or historical) view, which always sees art as a creative practice, i.e. shaping and meaning-generating human activity. The stylistics and rhetoric of the proposed text are characterised by a combination of scholarly discursiveness and lightened conceptual essayism. A sign of a semi-popular, semi-didactic narrative is the absence of a scientific apparatus (with a sufficiently detailed bibliography). The author very much hopes that this – partly incomplete, partly intricate – flow of thoughts and feelings will be suitable for both scientific tasks and circumstances of life.</p> <p><a href="#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1">[1]</a> Bibliography will be published in the second part of the essay</p>2025-06-26T00:00:00+00:00Copyright (c) http://85.142.116.254/index.php/journal/article/view/157“I really like to paint angels”: Icon painter in the space of the modern city2025-06-27T06:41:07+00:00S. S. Avanesoviskiteam@yandex.ruE. Ch. Iarudovaelmira.iarud@mail.ru<p>The interview discusses themes of “naive” icon painting in the cultural space of the modern city, the mission of religious art and freedom of artistic creation. Elmira Iarudova, an artist from Pskov, answers questions about universal and local iconographic canon, emotional connection of an iconographer with his work, correlation between artistic creativity and social and cultural space, mutual influence of fine art and personal growth, peculiarities of regional Christian iconography, and about languages and styles of modern iconography. The dialog clarifies the positions of the contemporary urban artist about relationship between tradition and innovation in the sphere of religious art, functions of the icon, the meaning of artistic creation, history and prospects of the icon-painting tradition in Russia, and the visual aspects of cultural and confessional identity</p>2025-06-26T00:00:00+00:00Copyright (c)